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Reflections on Tyranny, Democracy, Rights and Sovereignty

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It’s interesting and indeed important in this age where verity is an anachronism to reflect on the intellectual pillars on which seventeenth and eighteenth century political philosophers ruminated as they wove the fundaments on which they hoped “western” society might to be based.  They were not concerned with democracy at all.  Indeed, most disdained it as mob rule, but they were very concerned with avoidance of tyranny.  Not “tyranny” in the classical Greek sense of attainment of power by nontraditional means, Greek tyrants were among the most effective and populist leaders, but in the sense of abuse of power by an oligarch.  They realized, I believe, that rule of one man (a subject) by another (a sovereign) inevitably involves the appropriation, for benign or malign purposes, of the subject’s sovereignty (i.e., his or her autonomy) and they were most concerned with at least limiting the extent to which such bequeathed, stolen or otherwise acquired individual sovereignty would be subjugated.  In this, Thomas Hobbes was more sanguine than was the kinder and more idealistic John Locke but as history has demonstrated, Hobbes was more perceptive.

In the opinion of John Locke and perhaps also Thomas Hobbes, in a primordial, perhaps metaphorical past, individuals, theretofore fully vested of their individual sovereignty, surrendered it in exchange for a social system that provided some semblance of security and predictability because in a world where everyone was sovereign, no one was secure, the concept of private property could not exist, and though the strongest might rule, the weak, collectively or while the strong slumbered, could dispose of them.  Hobbes believed that individuals surrendered the totality of their individual sovereignty to a single individual, an autocrat, or to a group of individuals, an oligarchy, in exchange for promised personal safety and for “boons” from the sovereign which resembled rights, but could be modified, suspended or eliminated at the sovereign’s whim, so long as the sovereign provided security.

John Locke’s perspective was very different in that not all aspects of individual sovereignty were surrendered and the aspects retained were inviolable “rights”.  Further, that the surrender of the portion of individual sovereignty not retained was based on a social contract and thus, the surrender was conditioned on the sovereign’s compliance with the terms pursuant to which it had attained its authority, which included guarantees of security, but much more, especially respect for the aspects of sovereignty not surrendered.

Because “rights” were the purported residue of individual sovereignty, not granted but retained, they could not be conditioned, even when the conditions were benign, made sense and were necessary.  Consequently, if what seems a right is subject to any condition, it is no longer a right but a boon granted by one who has attained sovereignty over another or others, and the best that might be hoped for is a quasicontractual arrangement where the sovereign agrees to be bound by rules giving the subject limited means to enforce the boon granted.  Limited means because, as we see today in the United States, sovereigns tend to avoid or ignore the promises made to their subjects whenever the whim strikes them.  Thomas Hobbes did not believe in the concept of rights (other than as a primordial myth).  Because he believed that the totality of individual sovereignty had been surrendered to a central authority in exchange for security and for the grant of boons that sort of smelled like rights, he believed that mankind’s hope lay in enlightened sovereigns.

Today, “rights” appear everywhere, enumerated in countless constitutions and referenced constantly in treaties, legislation and political debates, indeed, they have morphed into diverse purported generations each expanding their purported scope.  But no so-called-right is unconditional and despite constant references to guarantees, no such right is consistently enforced.  Given that rights are purportedly self-enforcing, not having been granted but retained, it seems clear, at least to the author, that in reality, no rights, as understood by John Locke exist.  Rather, there are aspirational concepts towards which decent governments should seek to evolve, and what exists currently is solely the conception described by David Hume in his criticism of Locke as conventional, utility-based, and established human conditional agreements meant to maintain social order and property, essential, artificial rules that allow people to coexist peacefully, which may or may not be honored..

John Locke naively believed in rights and argued articulately in their favor albeit, as David Hume eventually pointed out, his logic was premise free, i.e., rather than articulated, his premises were purportedly self-evident.  However, clever politicians including those who betrayed their oaths of loyalty to the British monarchy in the latter half of the eighteenth century in order to appropriate the British monarch’s sovereignty for themselves, found Locke’s arguments useful, if perhaps not quite credible.  They were, after all, pragmatically practical men interested in practical results rather than the idealists that history portrays.  Indeed, their actions (think of Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence and slavery) with respect to their purported reformulation of John Locke’s conclusions were laced with hypocrisy.  That always has been the case and not just among the so-called Founding Fathers nor limited to the republic they founded.

Still, the Founding Fathers, like the political philosophers who preceded and followed them, were concerned with the issue of tyranny, at least with tyranny that impacted them directly and, in order to minimize tyranny, the founders of the United Colonies’ eventual republic sought to constitutionally disperse sovereignty in two ways: first by placing temporal limits on the human beings who might be charged with its employment and second, by fragmenting sovereignty into separate groupings of political power, thus avoiding “dictatorship” [1].  In this regard it is worth noting that the concept of dictatorship ought not to be considered a pejorative but rather, merely the result of un-fragmented sovereignty, i.e., when all political power was concentrated in one person or institution (the traditional segmentation of political power being, legislative, executive and judicial, to which should have been added a fourth, supervision and control over the other three to avoid usurpation[2]).

That democracy was not important at to the Founding Fathers seems obvious in the institutional structures they established through the Constitution promulgated in 1787 and set into full force in 1788:

  • The Senate was selected, not by the People but by the States. 
  • The membership of the House of Representatives was not based on population but on a complex system comprised in part of population, in another part based on equal numerical representation of the states, and in a third part by treating persons locked into involuntary servitude (slavery) as 3/5ths of a person, however, the right to vote was restricted in such manner as the states might determine so that, as in ancient Athens, less than ten percent of the population originally enjoyed the “franchise” (right to vote). 
  • The President was to be elected by designees of the states selected as they saw fit to serve in an organization that never actually met, the Electoral College.  And the federal Judiciary was to be selected for life by agreement between the president and the Senate. 

No trace of democracy anywhere. 

That system has somewhat morphed into a semblance of democracy by expansion of the right to vote, usurping functions originally assigned to the states, but not on a one person one vote basis as residents in smaller states exercise disproportional electoral power in the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. 

Democracy should however be a majoritarian concept and that requires popular participation.  Unfortunately, unlike the ancient Athenians and Romans where political participation (at least by those eligible to participate) was deemed a duty, in the United States participation in the political process is deemed a sort of right and, consequently, rarely if ever do enough eligible voters participate in the electoral process to make attainment of a real majority (more than 50% of the eligible electorate) possible.  Hence electoral decisions are made by relatively small pluralities, usually less than 30% of the eligible electorate and that 30% is comprised of or controlled by elites with little or no interest in the common welfare (as opposed to their own privileges).

Perhaps more relevant is the reality that while the illusion of democracy seems to have evolved over time, the reality has not.  Elected officials for the most part (with fairly are exceptions) answer not to their constituents but to those who fund their political campaigns.  Institutionally, political power is purportedly concentrated in two privileged political parties supposedly in a relationship of collaborative opposition but today and for the past half century at least, both of those groupings are economically dominated by a purportedly private organization dedicated to imposing the will of a foreign country on the citizenry[3].  As a result, the residents of that foreign country, well, at least the residents who are members of that country’s official religion, obtain, at the expense of United States tax payers, massive social programs  unavailable in the United States (e.g., subsidized housing, free healthcare and education, etc.), massive funding for its armed forces, the use of the armed forces of the United States for its own quest for lebensraum and, use of the veto power of the United States in the United Nations (as directed by that foreign government).  In addition to the foregoing, the purported rights constitutionally guaranteed to the citizens of the United States are quickly becoming inapplicable if they are detrimental to the goals, aspirations or interests of that foreign state. Consequently, a foreign state, without temporal limitations such as are involved in terms of political office or limitations based on fragmentation of sovereignty has imposed a de facto tyrannical dictatorship over the United States, which it uses to impose its will over the Middle East.  Its ambitions however may well spread to other regions in the not too distant future.

Ironic but perhaps, something that was predictable as far back as 1787.  Indeed, George Washington, the first president of the United States under the Constitution of 1787 seems to have foreseen the possibility now existent in his farewell address.  The address was in the form of a letter entitled “The Address of General Washington to the People of America on His Declining the Presidency of the United States” published in Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser on September 19, 1796, about ten weeks before the newly appointed members of the Electoral College were to cast their votes in 1796.  In that address he sternly warned against the situation which the country finds itself in today, one that has been continually evolving since at least 1916.  Wikipedia, not the most reliable source but a useful one from time to time, describes the segment of George Washington’s Farewell Address dedicated to foreign sovereigns as follows (footnotes omitted)[4]:

Washington dedicates a large part of his farewell address to discussing foreign relations and the dangers of permanent alliances between the United States and foreign nations, which he views as foreign entanglements. He advocates a policy of good faith and justice towards all nations, again making reference to proper behavior based upon religious doctrine and morality. He urges the American people to avoid long-term friendly relations or rivalries with any nation, arguing that attachments with or animosity toward other nations will only cloud the government’s judgment in its foreign policy. He argues that longstanding poor relations will only lead to unnecessary wars due to a tendency to blow minor offenses out of proportion when committed by nations viewed as enemies of the United States. He continues this argument by claiming that alliances are likely to draw the United States into wars that have no justification and no benefit to the country beyond simply defending the favored nation. Alliances, he warns, often lead to poor relations with nations who feel that they are not being treated as well as America’s allies, and threaten to influence the American government into making decisions based upon the will of their allies instead of the will of the American people.

….

Washington makes an extended reference to the dangers of foreign nations who will seek to influence the American people and government; nations who may be considered friendly as well as nations considered enemies will equally try to influence the government to do their will. “Real patriots”, he warns, who “resist the intrigues” of foreign nations may find themselves “suspected and odious” in the eyes of others, yet he urges the people to stand firm against such influences all the same. He portrays those who attempt to further such foreign interests as becoming the “tools and dupes” of those nations, stealing the applause and praise of their country away from the “real patriots” while actually working to “surrender” American interests to foreign nations.

Washington goes on to urge the American people to take advantage of their isolated position in the world, and to avoid attachments and entanglements in foreign affairs, especially those of Europe, which he argues have little or nothing to do with the interests of America. He argues that it makes no sense for the American people to become embroiled in European affairs when their isolated position and unity allow them to remain neutral and focus on their own affairs. He argues that the country should avoid permanent alliances with all foreign nations, although temporary alliances during times of extreme danger may be necessary. He states that current treaties should be honored but not extended.

Washington wraps up his foreign policy stance by advocating free trade with all nations, arguing that trade links should be established naturally and the role of the government should be limited to ensuring stable trade, defending the rights of American merchants and any provisions necessary to ensure the conventional rules of trade.

Obviously, as in the case of President Dwight David Eisenhower’s farewell address, President Washington’s foresight has been utterly ignored.  Thus, while the postulations of the sixteenth and seventeenth century philosophers who sought to provide future generations with guidance with respect to the avoidance of tyranny to some extent impacted the Founding Fathers in the formulation of the Constitution of 1787, the results have proven singularly unsuccessful and have instead, resulted in the domination of three hundred and fifty million residents of the United States by ten million European Immigrants to the Middle East who have managed to leverage widespread control over economics, communication, entertainment and finance into total control over the … well, … seemingly everything.  Pretty much the definition of tyranny.

So, … In retrospect, reflecting on tyranny, democracy, rights and sovereignty, we have never had democracy or rights although for a while, to an extent, we managed to minimize tyranny, but whatever sovereignty we once had, or though we had, is now illusory as well.  Ironically, the efforts of the Founding Fathers to sunder Britain’s American colonies from British sovereignty in a manner minimizing the risks of tyranny have only resulted in subjugation to the tyranny of another foreign sovereign.

At least for now.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/

[1] A dictatorship is the most efficient form of government but more likely to lead to tyranny than fragmented sovereignty although, as can be seen today, the scheme of governance the Founding Fathers established on their second attempt, in 1787, can fairly easily be converted into a dictatorship when all elements of such fragmentation are reunited under one person, or one political group, as frequently occurs and as is the case in the United States today.

[2] Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers did not provide for an arbiter between the three traditional powers, although the concept was considered at the Constitutional Convention, and several proposed solutions rejected.  Instead, they appeared to assume that such function could be attained through granting the executive a power to veto legislation, for whatever reason, subject to override, and also the power to pardon.  They were, unfortunately mistaken as that power was quickly usurped by the Judiciary in a decision worthy of Machiavelli, the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803) where John Marshall, the recently appointed n Chief Justice of the United States provided his detested cousin, President Thomas Jefferson with a pyrrhic victory by deciding in his favor, but based on the dubious theory that the Judiciary was the arbiter of constitutional authority.  Theretofore, that function had been assumed to lie in the legislative branch (as it did in the United Kingdom) or in the executive as implied at the Constitutional Convention, although a number of colonies in their own systems of governance had been drifting towards the concept of judicial review under their own constitutions.  See generally, Calvo Mahé, Guillermo et. al. (Jiménez Ramírez, Milton Cesar, editor, 2020): “Capítulo I. Evolución del control de constitucionalidad en los estados unidos.”; El control de la constitucionalidad en episodios: acerca del control constitucional como límite al poder; Universidad de Caldas, Facultad de ciencias jurídicas y sociales; Bogotá.

[3] The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

[4] George Washington’s Farewell Address; Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington’s_Farewell_Address.  Last edited on 23 February 2026, at 19:06 (UTC), accessed, March 10, 2026.

Democracy and Comparative Electoral Systems

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Today, March 8, 2026 is an interesting day because of the confluence of diverse factors.  It is “Women’s Day” in many places, originally “Working Women’s Day” but the concept has been expanded internationally as it has become recognized that unpaid domestic labor is as worthy of recognition as any other kind of labor.  But today is also Daylight Savings Time Day, at least in the United States of America where millions of people woke to find that they’re bodies believe that it is an hour later than everything around them seems to be occurring.  Finally, it is the first in a series of election days in the Republic of Colombia this year.  Today the members of Congress are elected and primaries are held for contested presidential candidacies.  Which brings me, admittedly in a roundabout way, to the continuing debate in the United States concerning who should be permitted to vote and how.

In Colombia, voting requires photo identification via a national identity card updated constantly to electronically indicate not only citizenship, but voting residency.  At the designated polls (voting is in person), one is also fingerprinted and required to provide a signature.  The individual voting locations are maintained electronically in the National Registry and one can find one’s polling place and room through the Internet.  The identity cards, denominated “cedulas”, are easily available to everyone, in fact, they’re required and used for commercial transactions, transport, etc.  They are issued by the National Registry which verifies citizenship as well as basic personal data including height and blood type.  Elections are easy, quick, and with results posted the same day.  All of the foregoing is very different than the incoherently complex, inefficient and insecure system in the United States where the concept of a national identification card has been anathema to conservatives and libertarians in the past but, ironically, at present, it is liberals who seem to oppose required voting identification while conservatives insist on photo identification that includes proof of citizenship and support federal legislation denominated the “Save Act” to make such requirements applicable nationally. 

The Save Act sounds logical but has a major problem.  Because the United States is a federation, elections occur at the state, county and special district rather than national level, even in elections for Congress and the Presidential Electoral College (there are no real presidential elections) thus, appropriate identification would require supplemental systems that verify not only national citizenship, but state and local domicile.  No current form of identification meets those requirements which would require a constantly updated national citizen database similar to what exists in Colombia and most other countries, a database heretofore opposed by the conservatives who now insist on what, without it, would be a dysfunctional Save Act.  So, unlike most of the world, the United States is engaged in an easily resolvable but transcendentally important ludicrous political debate, politicized in order to polarize the electorate.  Perhaps instead of Make America Great Again, the United States electorate needs to concentrate on just Make America Functional.

While the electoral process in the Republic of Colombia is fair, efficient and relatively secure, there are significant issues that render it deficient in terms of democracy, a universal problem.  Most of all, the electoral system is geared to empower political parties instead of voters, hence, it is political parties rather than the citizenry that is the subject of political rights and related political power.  As in most of the non-English speaking world, Colombian legislative elections are proportional so that the legislature more or less represents most of the political forces in the country.  If, for example, a political party only receives ten percent of the vote, it still receives ten percent of the membership in the legislature, unlike the English speaking world (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) where it would be completely frozen out.  This is accomplished in Colombia and elsewhere because instead of using individual electoral districts where only one legislator is chosen, a system of multi-legislator districts is used.  The most efficient such system is the one used in the Republic of Ireland for elections to the lower house of Parliament where the voter places all of the candidates in the district in order of preference allocating to each a voting value.  Thus, the individual voter’s personal list can be comprised of candidates from diverse political parties.  For example, if the district were to have ten candidates, the one listed first would receive a voting value of ten and the one listed tenth would receive a voting value of one.  If a candidate is not listed, the voting value would be zero.  The candidates elected in that ten legislator district would be the ten who accumulated the most voting value points and might well include candidates who received no first or second place votes.

In Colombia and other places, the list system is perverted because the lists are predetermined by the political parties and in many instances, the order of candidates, which determines who will be elected, is frozen.  In other hybrid systems voters get to either vote for the whole list or to indicate a preference for a single candidate, with the order of candidates in the list reprioritized based on the number of votes received by individual candidates.  In the Republic of Colombia, the political parties determine whether the lists will be closed, the former option, or open, the latter.  Closed lists are sometimes justified as necessary in order to assure gender balance in the results with candidates listed in alternating gender.

The principal practical problem with the legislative electoral system in the Republic of Colombia in the open system is that the names of candidates do not appear on the ballot, rather, only the names of the political parties or movements sponsoring the list and a series of numbers representing the individual candidates, thus, voters have to arrive at the polls with the number of the candidate they favor memorized.  Because voters frequently forget the specific numbers, they instead opt to vote only for the party.  This issue is easily resolvable by either placing the names of candidates on the ballot or providing a guide at the polling station that voters can consult to find the number allocated to their preferred candidate but as usually occurs, solutions are plentiful but the will to implement them, for manipulative reasons, is absent.  The other major problem is that although the electoral districts are multi legislator districts, voters can only vote for one candidate thus, for example, the Department of Caldas is entitled to five members in the House of Representatives, voters can only vote for one and in doing so, automatically vote for that candidates sponsoring political party or political movement.

Another practical problem in Colombia is that the political party system is in great incoherent ideologically. With political parties forming local electoral alliances of convenience.  Thus, in one Department a list may be jointly sponsored by the Liberal Party, Conservative Party, the Party of National Unity and the Radical Change Party, in another Department the party configuration may be very different, excluding some of the members or replacing or supplementing them with others, or even, presenting a unique list without alliances with other parties.  The consequence is that the policies advocated by different parties can be inconsistent in different parts of the country but, since promised policies are, as in most parts of the world, rarely honored, the impact is more theoretical than practical.

Legislative electoral systems in the English speaking world, the first past the post systems as they are commonly known, are the least democratic, i.e., candidates receiving less than half of the vote are elected based on a plurality, and a plurality means that the candidate was opposed by most of the voters who fragmented their votes.  Such issue could be tempered, if not resolved, through required runoff systems, but that would still disenfranchise a majority of the electorate.  Smaller political parties have no legislative representation at all, and hence, are not likely to ever evolve into major parties, especially as voters are urged by the media not to waste their votes on smaller political parties.

The proportional list systems have their own problems except, perhaps, in systems such as exist in the Republic of Ireland, but given the political power provided to political parties by systemic deficiencies, the likelihood of change to improve the functionality of legislative democracy, other than through constitutional reform directly through the electorate, is unlikely.  Democracy is thus, unfortunately, more of a useful illusion than a realistic system of governance, almost everywhere.  Of course, that leaves open for future analysis the value of an effective democratic electoral system given the laziness, ignorance, emotionality, prejudices and naiveté of so many voters.

Further exponent sayeth naught other than: Happy Women’s Day and Happy Daylight Savings Day!

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

On the GOP’s Save Act and Critical Related Issues

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Opposition to the so called Save Act (H.R.22 – 119th Congress, 2025-2026) by Democrats based on their current arguments concerning threats to democracy seems stupid, nonsensical and counterproductive (to the glee of the GOP).  The requirement for photo identification verifying citizenship and right to vote as a prerequisite to voting is something common all over the world, something usually accompanied by required signature and fingerprint verification.  In the United States the issue is a bit more complicated because of states’ rights under our federal system and the historical aversion to a national identification card and because of the transient nature of United States society with voting at federal, state and local levels predicated not only on citizenship but on residency.  Thus it would seem that appropriately reliable verification documentation would be required at each such level depending on the election involved.  A problem, true, but not an irresolvable problem given available technology.  However, it could well require implementation of a national identification smart card, centrally updated; not an insurmountable obstacle as credit card companies make clear on a quotidian basis.  Mail in voting, the other serious wedge issue, clearly facilitates electoral fraud and just as clearly, makes voting easier.  But safeguards can be added to minimize its deficiencies.  In addition to the danger of facilitating electoral fraud, mail in voting has been abused in order to “lock in” votes before relevant issues come to light by providing for early voting, but that too can be regulated in order to minimize its abuse, rather than eliminated.  Wise Democrats would be much better off electorally by resolving the deficiencies noted rather than by focusing on hyperbolic platitudes.

Still, constitutional arguments based on federalism and states’ rights do have merit.  The Constitution vests decisions concerning electoral qualifications and related issues in the states but provides Congress a role should it elect to exercise it, something which Congress has done from time to time albeit not coherently, that is because Congress has limited its role to issues involving “federal elections” and the only real federal election is that “virtual” election taken when state departments of state submit the results of state level elections for electors to the Electoral College (which never, in fact, meets) to the United States Congress for tabulation and consideration.  All other elections involving the national government are taken at the state level.  The House of Representatives is elected through state district elections in districts established and supervised by the states, the same being true with respect to the Electoral College and, of course, despite the ill-considered and antidemocratic 17th Amendment to the Constitution, election of Senators is also done on a state basis.  The members of the Supreme Court are not elected at all but rather appointed through agreement between the Senate and the president.  The issue however is, or ought to be, more complex.  The truth is that a constitutional amendment related to a number of electoral issues is desperately required. 

Issues that need to be dealt with constitutionally include:

  • Financing of electoral campaigns which should, in all probability, be limited to eligible voters in the electoral districts involved, excluding thereby corporate and related entities (e.g., unions, political action committees, etc.).  The Supreme Court’s abhorrent Citizens United decision also needs to be obliterated.
  • The use of the national census for purposes of determining state representation in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College needs to be clarified so that for those purposes, only citizens are counted.  Not even permanent residents should be counted although for other purposes the census should include everyone resident in a state, regardless of their nationality or electoral status.
  • The issue of birthright citizenship, poorly dealt with in the 14th amendment, should be clarified.  As interpreted by the Supreme Court, it has been seriously abused and is a goad to illegal immigration.  Mr. Trump is not always wrong.
  • The status of undocumented immigrants for diverse purposes should also be dealt with, perhaps creating national standards in order to avoid forum shopping.

Those issues each require serious consideration involving a much more fundamental issue as well.  The United States Constitution adopted in 1789 and implemented in 1791 envisioned a federal state comprised of purportedly sovereign states.  Really, a fragmentation of sovereignty predicated on the concept of enumerated powers dealt with both in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and in its 9th and 10th amendments.  However, as I noted quite a while ago in an article entitled Motley Constitutionalism: a Labyrinthine Aphorism, the concept of federalism has been drastically and negatively impacted since shortly after adoption of the Constitution; first, by John Marshall’s usurpation of constitutional control in the case of Marbury v. Madison, then by the usurpation of issues involving secession, supremacy of legislation and related factors by the federal government as a result of the Civil War of 1861-65 and through the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments imposed following the Civil War (justifiable though they were), then, in the series of Wilson administration constitutional amendments that shattered state power, especially the 16th (taxation), 17th (representation through the Senate), 18th (state police power) and 19th (state control of the right to vote) and finally, by Supreme Court decisions ostensibly based on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution during the middle of the 20th century.  The foregoing constitutional proposals would further the trend away from federalism and towards a unitary state, as would consistent proposals to do away with the Electoral College in favor of direct, popular election of the president.

Those damned two sides to every issue can be utterly frustrating.  However, there is also a third side.  The truth is that a broad and serious discussion concerning the federal nature of the Republic is very much past due, a nature that has become largely illusory as chip by chip its federal foundation has become eroded.  The reality is that the original concept, first of a confederation of independent states, sort of like the United Nations, and then of a hybrid between a confederation and a unitary state (a federation) has in practice perhaps become obsolete as the United States has “sort of” become one nation rather than a conglomeration of regions, although, politically, it has become divided between urban and rural areas with totally different voting perspectives and an utterly polarized citizenry.  That discussion should have been undertaken before each and every decision impacting federalism but apparently the topic and its strategic aspects were ignored in favor of the interests of the moment, pretty much in the same manner as the Save Act is being currently considered: ironically, a legislative act proposed by traditional proponents of states’ rights and opposed by traditional proponents of a powerful central government.

Perhaps it’s way past time for a profound discussion concerning the nature and deficiencies of the Constitution adopted in 1789, two-hundred-and-thirty-seven years ago, and so patched up that it resembles the “motley of ill-matched patches” worn by ancient court jesters.  Like the Bible and other sacred treatises, the current Constitution is honored and revered, oaths taken to preserve and defend it, but not really followed.

Perhaps it’s time for a new constitutional convention, one led by serious technocrats and academics rather than politicians, a constitution to then be presented directly for approval or rejection, in whole or in part, by the citizenry it will be meant to govern.  A constitution to effectively, efficiently and equitable harmonize our society in order to really attain the common welfare.  But the sad truth is that neither major political party is interested in the foregoing as it would eliminate too many of the useful wedge issues through which we are each manipulated, divided and controlled.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections from the Edge of a Seemingly Bottomless Pit

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November 5, 2024 is purportedly federal election day in the United States of America but the concept of an “election day” has become meaningless.  And that may not be a negative although how that has come about is troubling given that the main goal of that evolutive process seems to have become, not the implementation of more effective democracy but rather, the facilitation of more efficient electoral fraud and manipulation.

How so?

Well, in its least malign aspect, the evolving trend towards a voting season rather than an electoral day looks to “lock-in” voters prior to the availability of information necessary to make adequately informed voting decisions, thus making electoral manipulation more feasible.  That, of course, is tied into the manipulation of essential information by the corporate media through not only the publication and dissemination of distortions and outright lies as facts, but by the obfuscation of important relevant information, the Hunter Biden laptop from Hell being a prime, albeit far from the most important, example.  At least as nefarious are the range of voting procedures crafted by those who seek to minimize electoral safeguards through a longer, less organized and poorly monitored voting cycle, one where, for example, the State of California has criminalized required identity verification prior to voting and indeed, where most states controlled by the Democratic Party have taken steps to permit the casting of votes by people who provide no proof of who they are nor of their right to do so. 

The mass mailing of unsolicited ballots coupled with the ability to “harvest” and return such ballots is obviously designed, in its most benign aspect, to create a “market” for the purchase and sale of votes, and for the theft and unauthorized casting of ballots in its most nefarious form.  And that is where we find ourselves as the electoral season draws to a close “on or about” this November 5.  I use the phrase “on or about” because there is no longer a “hard date” by which votes must be cast given that judges and electoral officials in Democratic Party controlled states, and even in Democratic Party controlled counties and electoral districts have taken to insisting that the absence of postmarks or the receipt of ballots with postmarks beyond the date fixed for their return should be ignored in the interests of what they claim is a more ample form of democracy, something that seems akin to the old political slogan of “vote early and vote often”.

I have long avocated for an electoral period rather than an election day in order to make participation in the electoral process more convenient.  Decades ago I proposed that elections should take place over a series of set dates, perhaps as long as three or four, with results published daily to motivate the lazy to cast their votes when it became obvious that their participation would be essential in order for candidates they preferred to emerge victorious. But I understood that as important as participation in the electoral process was, safeguarding of the electoral process was at least as important, and that real democracy required limiting participation to eligible voters through strictly enforced safeguards, safeguards in fact effectively imposed in the poorest and least technologically advanced countries, safeguards such as photo identification cards, signatures and fingerprints.  In the Republic of Colombia where I currently reside such procedures are uniformly applied and though not perfect (electoral fraud still exists), at least efforts are made to minimize electoral fraud rather than to promote it.

In the United States, democracy is not thriving, it never has.  At the best of times the country has been ruled through a patchwork two-party dictatorship at the local, state, regional and federal levels, the “duopoly” at it is referred to by its critics, among them many smaller political parties, independent candidates and concerned voters.  But today’s Democratic Party seeks to eliminate even the duopoly.  During the past four years it has utterly corrupted the penal and judicial systems in order to minimize the ability of opponents to run against its pre-selected candidates, and I do not refer specifically to Donald Trump.  He at least is powerful enough to fight back.  But rather, to the most decent among alternative options, people like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of the assassinated senator and former attorney general, Robert Francis Kennedy and the nephew of the assassinated president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy; people like the eminent and brilliant Afro-American philosopher, academic and civic leader, Cornell West; people like eminent physician and civic leader, Jill Stein; people like former Democratic Party congressman and peace activist Dennis Kucinich.  Perhaps even worse, in an effort to retain permanent dictatorial power for the ill-named Democratic Party, the Biden administration has done everything possible to curtail opposing viewpoints through criminalization of the right to hold and express opposing opinions and in that effort has recruited the major news media and the major internet platforms.

Not that the GOP, the Grand Old Party, otherwise known as the Republicans are all that much better although, except when it comes to blind allegiance to Zionists imperil ambitions, it is significantly less inclined to engage in military adventures abroad or to censorship and lawfare at home.  Still, its candidate in this election is one of the world’s least pleasant persons, an egotistical, self-promoting demagogue.  How far have we sunk as a polity when he seems far more trustworthy than the slick loophole specialists who oppose him, the Clintons and the Obamas if not quite the Bidens, those who offer us as a choice the chameleonic Kamala Harris, lawyers all, lawyers beloved of the quasi-cultural Hollywood and New York elites and, of course, of the Deep State moles who believe they’ve found the “one ring to rule us all and in the darkness bind us”.

Absolute power seems to be the goal and, as the old adage claims, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  Today, the descendants of those who believed they were fighting against such tyranny instead find themselves actively involved in promoting genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid on the one hand as they court nuclear holocaust on the other, all in order to enrich the tiny minority of billionaires reliant for their political and economic power on perpetual war and oppression.  And on our own cowardice, cupidity and stupidity.

It is, in all probability, too late to defeat the forces of darkness arrayed against us, but we can still, at least, back our own versions of Tolkien’s Frodo: I allude to people like Jill Stein and Cornell West who are still options, and in other elections, we can decide to vote for any candidate unaligned with the duopoly.  As always, if enough of us took that road less travelled, we might somehow find ourselves glimpsing a light at the end of that deep dark tunnel into which we’ve been forced to descend, assured that the wreak of filth and death we smell is really milk and honey.

As the purportedly Wicked Witch of the West exclaimed in the 1930’s movie version of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, … “what a world, what a world”!  But perhaps hers is not the last word.

In 1875 poet William Ernest Henley, perhaps channeling the “darker days referenced by Sigmund Freud, wrote a poem he entitled “Invictus”, one I share as I close, albeit set in prose:

Out of the night that covers me, black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.  Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade, and yet, the menace of the years finds and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Tangled Political Realities as November 2024 Approaches

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In terms of political organizations, the concepts of “conservative”, “liberal”, “progressive”, “left”, right” and “center” no longer have any real meaning. Their meaning and context have been vacuumed, distorted and destroyed by those in charge of perpetrating and perpetuating lies and disinformation, the corporate media, faux historians, controlled academia and those who control the Internet (including both social media and search engines where algorithms rule). Such terms are now merely tools to polarize us, to divide us and to make us easier to control.

Two relevant opposing concepts do however exist: state-ism and populism.

Statists include an ironic amalgam of those who honestly believe that current governments are beneficent and the answer to all our social, economic and political problems with cynical deep state operatives who see the state as the ideal tool to control us and through such control, to extract ever increasing profits for the billionaire class. The latter is comprised of moles buried throughout the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the media who assure that government works to perpetuate the worst among us in power while keeping the bulk of us safely divided.

Populists are an amalgam from diverse, frequently opposing sociopolitical perspectives who share a belief that the institutions of government have been perverted and thus oppose them. In general, they share beliefs in real democracy and real liberty but acknowledge that such concepts do not currently exist.  Populists comprise the vast majority but have permitted statist to maintain them divided into opposing camps based on the fake labels listed above, i.e.: “conservative”, “liberal”, “progressive”, “left”, right” and “center”, which populists take seriously. The labels are institutionally fake but contextually relevant. The differences exist for populists but the reality is that far more unites each sector of the populist political spectrum than that which divides them. Something that statists seek to obfuscate at all costs because, should populists attain their common interests and often complimentary goals, the statist empire could be destroyed and the dreams of equity, relative equality, justice and peaceful coexistence might become realities.

Statists use divisive emotions to maintain dictatorial control: what were once known as “wedge issues” which keep populists at each others’ throats. Issues like abortion and gun control and immigration, and they distort sociocultural divisions like gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality and religion keeping real problems festering because as long as they remain unresolved, populists can be kept from uniting. And, of course, the most cynical and thus most effective statists in the United States are today found in the Democratic Party and among the traditionalist wing of the Republican Party, and in the United Kingdom, in the once populist Labour Party and in the Conservative Party, in each case, merely virtually identical two-headed-Hydrae.

In the meantime, Hillary Clinton and her groupies try to re-seize control of the Democratic Party from a dazed and confused Joe Biden so that she can have one more chance to be the first female president while the Obama camp keeps pulling tangled strings behind the scenes to deflect her aspirations but is itself confused as to whether Michele or “AG” (his real name is Eric but he can’t let us forget he was once the Attorney General) Holder should replace their inept current figurehead, and Donald Trump keeps smirking and holding massive rallies while we ignore that three decent people are seeking to lead us out of the Deep State wilderness: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Jill Stein and Cornell West, PhD.

And the rich keep getting richer, the poor, poorer, the economic center keeps shrinking and people keep dying massively in elective and genocidal wars while defense industry dividends soar and the corporate media shouts:

“Nothing here to see!  Move along!!!  Turn the page!!! Or else!!!”

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Rethinking Delusional Popular Governance

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The concept of democracy in conjunction with governance seems a sacred cow, unfortunately, a dysfunctional sacred cow given that the concept of democracy is neither understood nor respected and that what is required for the constitutionally guaranteed “public welfare” is efficient, transparent and honest governance with the capacity for long range planning and for providing its constituents with the opportunity to fully realize their capabilities and to lead peaceful, comfortable, happy and fulfilled lives.  That is certainly not what exists anywhere today.  Rather, we have self-perpetuating systems built on pillars of omnipresent corruption implemented through corrupt mass media and administered by corrupt entrenched bureaucracies.  Human rights, as the long-term Israeli genocide in Palestine supported by the United States and NATO makes clear, are mere delusions.

There are two principal poles for what is considered democratic governance, presidential systems with legislatures elected for fixed terms, and parliamentary systems which meld legislative and executive functions for variable terms, the exact length depending on how well the executive, which stems from the legislature, and the legislature are able to function collaboratively.  The latter is both more democratic and more coherent, but has its own internecine flaws.  In addition, there are forms of governments that require voters to participate (or else), generally in uniparty Communist systems, the most successful being those in the Peoples Republics of China and Vietnam, but according to the western press at least, they apply serious restrictions on personal liberty.

Looking at the most efficient governments, those most able to function strategically as well as tactically, it appears that long term executive leadership is essential, leadership such as that demonstrated in Germany during the long chancellorship of Angela Merkel and in the Russian Federation during the Putin era and the aforementioned Chinese and Vietnamese systems.  Of course, corrupt and inept long term leadership, such as that in Egypt, is awful.  Trusting that a majority of the people make the best electoral decisions has proven a fallacy, largely because the “people” are not free to select candidates, that function in reality being effected through a partisan filtering system controlled by purported elites and now, imposed in countries like the United States through blatant judicial manipulation as well.  In addition, the resulting disinterest results in lack of participation so no candidate is likely to ever receive more than 50% of the eligible vote, the quintessential aspect of democracy.

If the foregoing is accurate, then perhaps we need to consider how to implement a meritocratic rather than democratic method of selecting our leadership on a long term basis, but a method subject to earlier democratic revocation for misfeasance or malfeasance and with significant personal penalties in the case of any such revocation.  It could, for example, involve, in the first instance, a selection process embodying the philosophy of the original Electoral College in the United States, with a democratic revocatory process exercised both periodically, say every five years, or on the spot if invoked by a significant portion of the electorate dissatisfied with the results of the incumbent leader.  Electoral participation by the citizenry would, as it was in ancient Athens, be a duty and not a right, with serious consequences for shirking it or exercising it in a corrupt manner (e.g., selling or renting it).  It smells a bit too much like the fascist ideal of an overall, all-powerful leader, except for the revocatory mechanisms but those make all the difference.  Admittedly, the concept needs to be polished a bit with a check and balance mechanism such as a negative legislature, an elected body charged with political control functions and the ability to veto executive decrees (which would replace traditional legislative functions), but not responsible for enacting legislation.  A multi cameral negative legislature would be best, one chamber being selected democratically, one based on pluralistic concepts and one selected meritocratically based on expertise in diverse areas but all three chambers voting as one.  Of course, an independent judiciary would be essential, but not one charged with constitutional control or review, as would an independent body controlling the electoral system, perhaps a body selected by the legislature.  The most serious penalties under the penal system would be reserved for violation of political and judicial duties, pretty much the way it is today in the People’s Republic of China.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it is a saying reflective of a great deal of common sense but one that does not apply to our current models of governance.

Something to at least consider, although implementation in the face of the entrenched and ruthless deep state makes any kind of real reform improbable.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.